The National Labor Relations Board on Monday granted Dartmouth trustees additional time to request a review of a regional official's decision that the school's men's basketball players are employees.
The official's ruling last week cleared the way for an election that could create the NCAA's first athletes' union.
The national labor relations board office granted Dartmouth's request to move the appeal deadline from Feb. 20 to March 5, which is the same day players are scheduled to participate in an in-person election at the school campus in Hanover, New Hampshire.
All 15 members of the Dartmouth basketball team signed the initial petition asking to be represented by the Service Employees International Union, which already represents some Dartmouth workers. One of the players, Romeo Myrthil, said Saturday after the team's 77-59 loss to Harvard that he had no reason to expect anything different when the players voted.
The NCAA has long maintained that players are “student-athletes,” a term created to emphasize that education comes first. But the regional director of the labor relations board in Boston ruled on Feb. 5 that the players were indeed employees of the school.
The outcome of the case could have broad implications for the definition of amateurism in college athletics.
In an earlier case involving Northwestern's football team, the labor relations board overturned a similar ruling by a regional official on a technicality that does not apply in the Dartmouth case.
